Azernews.Az

By Alimat Aliyeva

The fastest supercomputer in the world has been officially launched at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. According to LLNL representatives, the supercomputer, named El Capitan, cost $600 million and will be used for various classified tasks, including ensuring the safety and reliability of the United States' nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of underground nuclear tests, which have been banned since 1992, Azernews reports.

The research conducted with El Capitan will primarily focus on national security, including material discovery, high-density physics, nuclear data analysis, weapons development, and other sensitive projects.

Construction of the supercomputer began in May 2023, and it became operational in November 2024, with its official unveiling taking place on January 9, 2025.

El Capitan achieved the status of the world’s fastest supercomputer upon becoming fully operational, demonstrating an impressive 1,742 exaflops (a unit of computational performance). This score was achieved on the High-Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark, a standard test used to measure supercomputing performance. El Capitan is now only the third computer in history to reach exaflop-level calculations, and its peak performance is a staggering 2,746 exaflops.

This marks a significant leap forward in computing power, enabling more advanced simulations and analyses crucial to U.S. defense and scientific endeavors. Its unparalleled processing power will allow for groundbreaking simulations, particularly in areas like nuclear weapon safety, climate modeling, and material science.

Notably, El Capitan is also expected to play a key role in the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning, with its immense capabilities allowing researchers to push the boundaries of AI research. The computer's performance and versatility are expected to set a new benchmark for computational science, offering unprecedented insights into everything from complex physics to biomedicine.

As one of the most advanced machines ever built, El Capitan underscores the growing role of supercomputing in both national defense and technological advancement. Its speed and power position the United States at the forefront of global supercomputing, further cementing the strategic importance of high-performance computing in the 21st century.